Athletics at UNT
Our NCAA Division I teams compete in Conference USA, and we’re proud to say our dedicated student-athletes find success in the classroom as well as in their sports. Go Mean Green!
2017-2018 athletic highlights
- The football team won the Conference USA West Division title and earned a trip to the New Orleans Bowl, its second-consecutive bowl berth.
- The volleyball team won its first Conference USA title, capturing the regular-season league crown.
- The Mean Green soccer team won the 13th conference championship in program history, taking the Conference USA tournament title with a win over Charlotte in the finals.
- The Mean Green men’s basketball team won the College Basketball Invitational tournament, capturing the best-of-three finals with an 88-77 win over San Francisco at the Super Pit.
- UNT’s women’s basketball team reached the semifinals of the Conference USA tournament and posted its most successful season in 12 years and best conference-tournament finish in 16 years.
Legacy of excellence
- Mean Green teams have won 130 conference championships, including 34 since 2000.
- UNT has a long history of outstanding golf. The men’s program won four consecutive national championships from 1949 to 1952. Among the members of the championship teams were future pros and fellow Texas Golf Hall of Fame members Don January, Billy Maxwell, Joe Conrad, Ross Collins and A.J. Triggs.
- The football program has produced 33 All-Americans and 78 players who have been drafted to play in the National Football League, including Abner Haynes, who first starred in the American Football League, and “Mean” Joe Greene. Teams over the years have played in 10 bowl games. The latest was the 2018 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl against Troy.
- Mean Green basketball had its first NBA draft pick in more than 20 years when Tony Mitchell was selected by the Detroit Pistons in the second round of the 2013 draft. Including Mitchell, 16 Mean Green players have been drafted in the history of the program.
- Track and field stars through the years have included twin twins Elmer and Delmer Brown and Wayne and Blaine Rideout, who set a world record in the mile and seven-eighths relay in 1938, and Bill Schmidt, who won the bronze medal in the javelin at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. And football standout Johnny Quinn, who also ran track, competed on the U.S. bobsled team at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.